NL Notes: Cole, Braves, Altherr, Klentak

Last weekend, it was discovered that Pirates ace Gerrit Cole was displeased to have his contract renewed for the same pay as he earned last season. While Cole may be peeved by the lack of raise, it doesn’t mean he and the club don’t have common ground for an extension, writes Travis Sawchik of Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Former Phillies ace Cole Hamels made similar public comments back in 2008 before inking a three-year, $20MM deal for his arbitration seasons. Sawchik also relates a number of details about Cole’s specific situation as well as the players’ share of revenue league wide – it’s well worth a read.

The Braves rotation is a shadow of the unit that dominated the National League for over a decade, writes the associated press for the New York Times. The entire unit has issues. “Ace” Julio Teheran is coming off his worst major league season, and he’s the only lock for a job. As manager Fredi Gonzalez joked, there’s a wave of high profile arms, but they’re “out by the Marshall Islands.” Pitching prospects are notoriously fickle. Before the high ceiling talents get a chance to work in the majors, Atlanta fans will have to hope players like Matt Wisler, Mike Foltynewicz, and Bud Norris can show some sign of life.

Phillies outfielder Aaron Altherr suffered a left-wrist injury on a diving play yesterday, writes Matt Breen of Philly.com. Altherr had the wrist in a splint today and has not received X-Rays yet. The former prospect is familiar with wrist injuries which sapped his development in late 2013 and early 2014. He doesn’t believe this round is anywhere as serious as his previous injury which required surgery. Altherr is widely expected to start for the Phillies after a breakout 2015 season. In my view, the club could option him if they preferred for him to ease into action in the minors.

For those curious about Phillies GM Matt Klentak’s playing background, Mike Sielski of Philly.com has the details. Klentak, 35, attended Dartmouth College where he played shortstop for head coach Bob Whalen – himself a friend of now-Mets GM Sandy Alderson. From there, it’s not a far jump to Moneyball. Klentak also offered a couple interesting quotes, including “Players will reach their ceilings when they’re playing confidently, when they’re in an environment that’s loose and that allows them to be the player that they want to be.“

Comments

In Cole Hamels situation he was renewed for $110,000 more than the $390,000 MLB minimum in 2008 or a 28% raise and then signed for the 2nd largest deal ever for a player that was entering arbitration eligibility. The Phillies certainly didn’t get much of a discount and that was with John Boggs as his agent, not Boras who doesn’t often have players he represents sign team friendly deals.

Gerrit Cole was signed for the exact same amount of money he earned last year AND the Pirates threatened to sign him for the MLB minimum of $507,000. In other words, they threatened to CUT his pay after he put up ACE numbers and was by far the best pitcher on their staff. HUGE difference in treatment and the raise received. Gerrit Cole has no incentive to do anything but stick it to the Pirates each and every year of arbitration. Boras will make sure he gets every penny coming to him and it’s a lot more than the Pirates will be able to pay. $8+ million in 2017 progressing up to $20+ million in 2019. They MIGHT have gotten him to sign an extension before what they pulled this year, but now it’s more likely that a snowball will last all day on a sidewalk in the sun in Phoenix in August.

You hit the nail on the head. Many players could be with different teams right now had they accepted the first offer that they received out of high school..Cole signed a large bonus contract. Even if the Pirates doubled Cole’s salary this year would never guarantee any kind of extension, team friendly or not. As Pads Fans said above, Mr. Cole has Mr. Boros as an agent. He is very good at getting the most out of arbitration and free agent contracts for quality to star players. If Cole is intent on maximizing his income, he will not sign any extension as he will win every year in arbitration and will be a FA in 2020. Any extension would cost him arbitration awards and if he extends even one FA year, he loses on a huge payday for that year. The Pirates lost nothing in not giving Cole more money.

Boros has his players signing short term contracts during arbitration years all the time. Why? Because it covers them if they get injured. Cole will get his money when the time comes and if he is healthy and pitching well.

Yep and does anybody care about 500k here or there in Cutch’s contract? But the team has to save money when it can in the current system! There are problems all over the place in the CBA.

Everyone’s complaining that no one over 30 can get a job, but they’ve created this. Maybe if the older players got paid less (when they’re actually less valuable), and the younger players got paid more (when they’re actually more valuable), it wouldn’t be as it is now.

In the other leagues you don’t get saddled with legacy contracts like you do in baseball, and if anything that actually increases the amount of money teams are willing to throw at the players in their primes.

If teams weren’t making franchise-breaking mistakes when they sign up to pay waning stars what they deserved in their prime, the system would work a lot better. If the cost controlling tactics of things like pre-arb renewal or service time management get closed off without some checks and balances, we’re going to be getting close to the inverse of the reverse clause era — players will basically be dictating salaries to teams.

Instead I hope they can do something to level the playing field between teams — some combo of major revenue sharing to level out payrolls across the league, a cap to keep teams from being able to bid whatever they want to win a FA and a floor to prevent “tanking” and make teams at least put something resembling a baseball team on the field during rebuilds. All told everybody should win in the end, more teams able to get top talent, more teams interested in players on the FA market.

A hard Salary cap with a floor is the best way to fix things but will probably never happen in baseball, people seem to forget it is a competition and you should not receive huge advantages just based on geography, and the ability to get huge TV contracts. As long as baseball operates like it is a free enterprise teams will be forced to find new ways to keep up, and that will mean more aging guys not getting contracts as mid market teams have to budget every cent just to remain competitive.

It costs more to buy that large market team like the Cubs than it would be to get the Pirates, Rays or Twins. The reward is you can make more money. But teams in large markets also have more competition for the entertainment dollar. Take the Mets…..they have to battle the Yankees, Giants, Jets, Knicks, Nets, Rangers and Islanders….and that’s just for the sports. They also have broadway productions and a very high cost of living. They need that star factor to get people in the seats. Steinbrenner understood that.

I can see both arguments here. Simba provides value BUT, he is going to get expensive soon and by the time the arms are all productive his trade value would be a lot lower than it was this offseason. With his mediocre bat, of his glove declines much, he becomes a 1-2WAR player getting paid like a 3-4 WAR guy. That’s bad business.

Expensive is a subjective term and going after him for it is pretty foolish.

At what point is it too expensive to bat a guy 150 times who is going to give you a 84 wRC+? $6mm? $8mm? $11m? At what point is Simmons’ glove not enough to justify the big bucks he is going to earn over the remaining lifetime of his contract?

You can’t say that the Braves should stock up on hitting and then deride them for trading their worst hitter. I love Simba, but he was a luxury not a cornerstone. And trying to stack the deck by mentioning one bad spring training outing is pure laziness.

lol, you need to look up the meaning of cognitive dissonance boy, because you suffer from it.

Simmons will be making $39m between 2018-2020 while compared to free agent contracts this is affordable with all of his value tied up in his defense (and a fair amount of middle infield depth as they apparently were in the depths of the trade that acquired Swanson when they moved Simmons) the risk of his trade value plummeting vs the ability to free up payroll without losing any long term value was smart business.

Simmons has been around a 3.5 WAR avg player so far, if his defense drops and his bat doesn’t improve he suddenly becomes very ordinary. The ability to move him for Newcomb and Ellis (plus a season of Aybar and cash which might be flipped for value later this year) AND move the risk of the coming higher payroll was a good decision.

So, stop thinking with your emotions and learn the game of baseball, how to judge and analyze player values, and the business end of the game and you will not only enjoy it more, you won’t go on baseball sites and sound like a drooling casual fan who doesn’t know any names on the team.

You just agreed with NL East Rivalry in making your argument. He said you draft pitching unless you can get “couple in a decade guy or top pick.” Well the couple in that decade were Trout and Harper. Harper, who like he mentioned was the top pick in his draft, which again was part of his comment. Oh and I wear Velcro.

You are all idiots… John Hart is a hit or miss. Great trades: Miller trade, Heyward trade, Upton trade, and the other Upton trade. Terrible Trades: Gattis trade, Johnson for Bourn and Swisher, and Simmons Trade. Calm down and see how this pans out. The Braves put it all together in the early 90’s and are trying to figure out how to do it again. They missed with the Medlen, Beachy, Minor, Teheran scenario but that wasn’t their fault. They can’t stop Tommy John surgery. And with you saying the Braves need to be stocking up on pitching, take a look at their prospect pipeline. 1. Swanson 2. Albies 3. Riley 4. Smith 5. Ruiz 6. Davidson. That looks pretty dang good. And they have their eyes set on Buddy Reed or Corey Ray for this years draft and next year with J.J. Shwarz. With a future lineup in 2019 of
1. Smith CF
2. Swanson SS
3. Freeman 1B
4. Shwarz C
5. Reed/Ray RF
6. Riley 3B
7. Albies 2B
8. Left Field? Maybe William Benson LF
9. Pitcher
With Maitan and possibly Lazarito in the minors and who knows how many other prospects. They will be fine. Calm down. And we all know rotation wise they will be better than fine.

Obviously I must be one of the idiots you are referring to. But where is Inciarte? And who is the catcher you are referring to? Have not heard of him, but I am not up on college players much either. Plus 2019, Olivera is still on the team.

All GMs are hit or miss, in my opinion. I don’t agree with all your assessments on the trades, but opinions vary.